The Winter Olympics ice hockey tournament is live on Friday with Norway taking on Finland along with Canada playing Austria and those Group B matches lead into the weekend and the top team in the group will get a bye into the playoff round in Sochi and comes as Finland has a looming matchup with the Canadian team on Sunday.
The hockey tournament got started off with a bang for the United States and they won 7-1 against Slovakia and they are one of the favorites for the tournament along with Canada, who won the gold medal last time around over the USA team. Russia is looking like a prime contender as well as the host team and Alex Ovechkin is motivated to get it done and he will be going up against rival Sidney Crosby, who was the hero for team Canada last time.
The United States had Jonathan Quick make his debut at the games in the first matchup with Slovakia and he was excellent, totally outplaying Jaroslav Halak and he put behind and questions about his skills, as he came in 29th in the NHL this season in save percentage. He was given the starting nod anyway over hero Ryan Miller from 2010 and he is serving as the backup, while the Canadian team had Carey Price make his Olympics debut as well in the first game, while Vancouver hero Roberto Luongo will start in game two and Mike Smith will also be the backup.
The Russian team and the United States are in the same group and Canada has a tough test with Finland and the top four teams will advance into the next round with a bye and the rest of the teams will work it out before the playoff rounds start up. The gold medal game comes next Sunday and the bronze medal game is on Saturday and both the United States and team Canada are expecting to be there at the end once again in a rematch of the last one in Vancouver.